The Perks of Compulsive Shopping

It's a lazy spring afternoon, school's almost out, and all Ace wants to do is waste the day away lying beside his best friend.

Submitted:Jul 17, 2012
Reads: 20
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Ace's eyes idly follow
the tiny airplane as it sails hundreds of thousands of miles
overhead in the bright blue sky. He vaguely wonders where it's
headed, and what the people on it might be doing. Reading,
watching a movie, eating small packages of peanuts, sleeping. A
part of him wishes that he was on it, sailing through the sparse
clouds on his way to some exciting foreign land.

Instead he is in his
backyard, lying in the space between two trees on his nice new
hammock. The other part of him doesn't feel like moving an inch.
The weather is perfect- the sun is bright and warm, the sky is
clear and blue, the grass is green beneath him and bugs are just
beginning their late spring hum. It's a quiet afternoon, a nice
lazy Sunday. Ace closes his eyes, feeling that all is surely
right with the world.

He hears the backdoor
slide open, then shut. He doesn't bother to open his eyes to see
who it might be. Perhaps it's his mother, coming to bring him
some cold lemonade and tell him how proud she is that he's worked
so hard in school this year, so proud that she finally decided to
get him the dog he's always wanted. And then his father will come
behind her with the little pup on a leash and let him go and he
will run and jump up onto Ace's lap, and they will spend the rest
of the afternoon lying here, a boy and his brand new dog-

"Why are you
smiling?"

Ace cracks an eye open.
Kristen's face comes into view. She looks down at him with her
hands on her hips. He smiles wider.

"Is happiness always a
crime with you?" he says, opening the other eye.

"No," she says lightly.
Her hands fall from her sides and she walks closer. She reaches
out and grasps the edge of the net with her fingers, giving it a
push. He slowly swings back and forth. "When did you get a
hammock?" she asks.

"Stop answering my
questions with questions," she says. He feels her grab the
hammock and steadies it to a stop.

"Okay," he says,
wishing she'd push it again. "I was at the store and I saw it on
display. I had some money so I bought it."

"Of course you did,"
she says. He hears amusement in her voice.

There's silence for a
moment. He hears the faint swooshing of passing cars beyond the
front of his house. Then suddenly the hammock tilts
violently.

His eyes fly open.
"Kristen! What-"

"Move over, I'm getting
on," she says.

"It's going to flip
over-"

"Oh please, you'll be
fine," she says. He attempts to scoot over as she lifts her leg
onto the net. Then she pushes the other one off from the ground
and tumbles right on top of him.

The hammock momentarily
rocks them back and forth. Ace blinks and looks directly up into
her face, which he quickly realizes is very, very close.

He also notices the way
her elbows are on either side of him and her hands grip the net
by his ears. Her bare legs are tangled around his left one and
her chest is flattened against his. His heart beats wildly
against it.

She looks right back at
him. In the rare moments when he gets to see them this close, he
is always taken aback by how very blue her eyes are. Her dark
lashes frame them prettily, and very faint freckles dust the
bridge of her nose. Her soft hair falls around her face, brushing
the sides of his cheeks lightly, and suddenly the only thing he
sees and thinks and feels is her.

It crosses his mind, as
it always does, that this would be the perfect opportunity to
just lean up and close those few tiny inches and finally kiss
her. Just kiss her like he's always wanted to and like
she, he's recently started letting himself believe, might want to
as well.

Ace's eyes flicker to
her pretty pink lips. She blinks. His heart is racing, and it's
getting harder to breathe.

Her face floods with
color and she rolls off of his chest. He takes a deep breath as
she falls beside him, and he moves over so she has room. When
they finally fall still, he becomes very aware of how his left
arm is pressed against hers, the way their legs still touch, and
how her head lies right beside his.

"Sorry about that," she
says as the hammock swings them again.

"S'all right," he
says.

They lay in silence for
a few minutes as the hammock slows back to stillness, enjoying
the peace, the quiet, and the feel of each other's skin against
their own. The backs of their hands touch, and Ace almost
considers moving his so that their palms meet instead. Her voice
drags him out of his thoughts.

"You know, this is
nice," Kristen says. She tilts her head to the side to face his.
He looks over and meets her eyes. "You're good at compulsive
shopping."

"Thanks," he says,
giving her a grin. She smiles back.

They fall into silence
again. She moves her head so that her cheek is just slightly
resting against his shoulder, and he moves his fingers so that
they're just slightly in the spaces between hers. Ace closes his
eyes and smiles to himself again.

Not a single part of
him would rather be anywhere else in the entire world.